The Manager’s Dilemma: Role Conflict in Marketing

Norris Brisco, Melvin Copeland, Henry Erdman, Benjamin Hibbard, George Hotchkiss, Leverett Lyon, Stanley Resor, Clarence Saunders, Harry Tosdal, Roland Vaile: Who are these people? They are great men in the history of marketing, according to Wright and Dinsdale (1974). They are marketing heroes. But riot society’s heroes. Rather than hero, the marketing man is usually a villain in novels; he is the butt of jokes; and respondents to surveys think poorly of him

Cheating in Management Science (with Comments by M. K. Starr and M. J. Mahoney)

Honesty is vital to scientific work and, clearly, most scientists are honest. However, recent publicity about cases involving cheating, including cases of falsification of data and plagiarism, raises some questions: Is cheating a problem? Does it affect management science? Should anything be done

Forecasting with Econometric Methods: Folklore versus Fact

Evidence from social psychology suggests that econometricians will avoid evidence that disconfirms their beliefs. Two beliefs of econometricians were examined: (1) Econometric methods provide more accurate short-term forecasts than do other methods; and (2) more complex econometric methods yield more accurate forecasts. A survey of 21 experts in econometrics found that 95% agreed with the first statement and 72% agreed with the second. A review of the published empirical evidence yielded little support for either of the two statements in the 41 studies. The method of multiple hypotheses was suggested as a research strategy that will lead to more effective use of disconfirming evidence. Although this strategy was suggested in 1890, it has only recently been used by econometricians

Barriers to Scientific Contributions: The Author’s Formula

Recently I completed a review of the empirical research on scientific journals (Armstrong 1982). This review provided evidence for an “author’s formula,” a set of rules that authors can use to increase the likelihood and speed of acceptance of their manuscripts. Authors should: (1) not pick an important problem, (2) not challenge existing beliefs, (3) not obtain surprising results, (4) not use simple methods, (5) not provide full disclosure, and (6) not write clearly. Peters & Ceci (P&C) are obviously ignorant of the author’s formula. In their extension of the Kosinski study (Ross 1979; 1980), they broke most of the rules

Discovery and Communication of Important Marketing Findings: Evidence and Proposals

My review of empirical research on scientific publication led to the following conclusions. Three criteria are useful for identifying whether findings are important: replication, validity, and usefulness. A fourth criterion, surprise, applies in some situations. Based on these criteria, important findings resulting from academic research in marketing seem to be rare. To a large extent, this rarity is due to a reward system that is built around subjective peer review. Rather than using peer review as a secret screening process, using an open process likely will improve papers and inform readers. Researchers, journals, business schools, funding agencies, and professional organizations can all contribute to improving the process. For example, researchers should do directed research on papers that contribute to principles. Journals should invite papers that contribute to principles. Business school administrators should reward researchers who make important findings. Funding agencies should base decisions on researchers' prior success in making important findings, and professional organizations should maintain web sites that describe what is known about principles and what research is needed on principles

Prediction of Consumer Behavior by Experts and Novices

Are those who are familiar with scientific research on consumer behavior better able to make predictions about phenomena in this field? Predictions were made for 105 hypotheses from 20 empirical studies selected from Journal of Consumer Research. A total of 1,736 predictions were obtained from 16 academics, 12 practitioners, and 43 high school students: The practitioners were correct on 58.2 percent of the hypotheses, the students on 56.6 percent, and the academics on 51.3 percent. No group performed better than chance

Strategies for Implementing Change: An Experiential Approach

An attitude survey and a role-playing case were used to identify the typical approaches people use to implement important changes in organizations. This typical strategy, suggested or used by over 90% of the subjects, was not successful in producing change in any of the fourteen role-playing trials. However, with ten minutes of instruction in the ”Delta Technique,” 86% of the subjects were successful in introducing change in another fourteen role-playing trials. The ”Delta Technique” consists of simple rules drawn from half a century of research

Monetary Incentives in Mail Surveys

Eighteen empirical studies from fourteen different researchers provide evidence that prepaid monetary incentives have a strong positive impact on the response rate in mail surveys. One of these studies is described here and an attempt is made to generalize from all eighteen about the relationship between size of incentives and reduction in nonresponse. These generalizations should be of value for the design of mail survey studies

Learner Responsibility in Management Education, or Ventures into Forbidden Research (with Comments)

Formal education can be improved by transferring responsibility from the teacher to the learner. A simple approach to this is the time contract. Time contracts have been used successfully in nine quasi-experiments but, despite these successes, some educators see this as subversive research